Yet Another Teen Survey

Shark-fu, over at Angry Black Bitch has posted And I'll bet there is a study that shows studies are full of shit...., where she says

According to the survey conducted by Junior Achievement Worldwide, nearly 40 percent of teens believe that lying, cheating or violence are necessary to succeed. 23 percent who said violence toward another person is acceptable on some level. Overall, the number of teens who said they’d fuck with the rules doubled since 2003.

Okay, but mayhap someone should ask some not so obvious questions about this survey data.

Factoring in this new data, how can we trust that the teens are telling the truth when they say they don’t value telling the truth?

Or could it be that these teens are actually being more honest that the 2003 teens? If so, wouldn’t that indicate a decrease in survey dishonesty and wouldn’t that sort of contradict the new survey results?

And what it reminded me of was my junior and senior year in high school.* I was in a gifted program. Twenty eight of us took our requirements and many of our electives together. In our senior year, we had mornings at the local community college and afternoons at the high school. And part of being involved in what would now be called a pilot project was that we spent a lot of time under the microscope. Our parents were interviewed.** And we took psychological test after psychological test. And one test, during our senior year, when we were missing regular classes in two schools for what we could see little use for,*** a group of us decided to answer at random. We couldn't get out of the test, so we did the next best thing. After all these years I can't remember whether we got in trouble for it, but I imagine that we did.

But, the point is, these days teens are surveyed and tested all over the place. Not just the ones in a particular group, but all of them. And most especially they are asked about risk-taking behavior and moral behavior. Do the testers, I wonder, ever think about whether the kids are giving them true answers as opposed to answers to please and/or answers to shock?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you really want to know what teens think and believe, you aren't going to get it from a forced-choice survey.**** You need to actually talk to them and really listen. You need to get examples. And you need to observe how they really act.*****

* Remembering that I graduated in 1960.
** My mother well remembers the hours of interviews that covered everything from my toilet training to checking out the books on the family bookshelves.
*** Surely all the other tests had covered everything important, hadn't they?
**** Just this week I went to the HGTV website and took their test for determining my interior decoration style. It was forced-choice, in that I was to choose which of four pictures I liked best in a number of categories. Except there wasn't anything in any of those pictures that I would really want in my home. Nothing awful, but none of it my style. So, if I can't find something that represents my answer about furniture, how will I find it about lying?
***** Maybe it's my unusual training first as an anthropology minor and then in my Montessori masters program, but it seems so obvious to me that if you want to know what anyone really believes, you observe what they do.

Graphic by INdiana Systemic Thinking

I Told You Teens Are Wonderful

Ok, so I found this link on Echidne of the Snakes and it was so delightful that I had to share it with you.
Sea of Pink

Having spent a good deal of time working with high school students, this confirms my favorable opinion of young people. Good for them. Good for us, that they are growing up to take their place as adults in this world that surely needs them.

Peanut Butter Soup

One of the books that the Elves', Gnomes', Leprechauns', & Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society members really loved was John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row", set in Monterey, California in the early 40s. Characters in the book were based on people who Steinbeck had known when he was spending time there. The main character, Doc, based on his friend Ed Rickets, was a personal favorite of ours. And Doc, a marine biologist, liked beer. One of the other characters commented to him once that he liked beer so much that no doubt he would drink a beer milkshake.

No matter how Doc tried to get this bizarre idea out of his head, it wouldn't leave. Finally, one day when he was out of town (he somehow couldn't do this where he was known), he drove into a drive-in and ordered a beer milkshake.

Years after I read this I was living in Cupertino and I used to go to this little restaurant for lunch a lot. I generally ordered their soup and salad special, except for on Thursdays. On Thursdays the soup was peanut butter, and that was just too odd for me.

Except that, every time I would see that sign, "Soup - Peanut Butter" I would wonder why on earth anyone would try such a thing and shudder at the thought. And wonder what it would taste like.

I couldn't get it out of my mind. Like a beer milkshake, it haunted me. I would wake up on Thursday and wonder what I would have for lunch that day, since I wasn't having the soup special. Until, finally, one day I ordered it. Oh. My. Soooooo good. Peanuts. Chili. Smooth and yummy.*

When I told friends about it, I would say, "it was my beer milk shake" and they would not understand at all. They would look at me like I was crazy and begin to wonder if I weren't a secret drinker.

About eight years later, Michael, an old EGL&LMCMS friend from high school, came to visit and I fixed peanut butter soup and he raved about it and so I told him about trying it and as I was telling him about it preying on my mind, he said, "Right. A beer milk shake."

Ah, to be understood.

* The next Thursday I was so excited, all set for another bowl. But when lunch came, the sign read, "Soup - Split Pea". "What," I asked, "happened?" And it turned out that I was one of the few people who tried the soup, so they discontinued it. I had to find a recipe and learn to make it myself. And a very good job I do of it, too. The recipe calls for smooth peanut butter, but I find that extra chunk is much better. And I can add extra chili powder. Heaven. It tastes like Heaven.

Civics 10

One of the things that the teens I work with do is lobby the state legislature on bills concerning underage drinking. Usually we have a couple of weeks to prepare to visit, but Monday we didn't. We have been busy with other events and the bill that we are following this session had been sitting in the Rules Committee for a couple of weeks, and then last week was spring break for the Juneau school district. And on Friday of last week, suddenly the bill began to move. It was scheduled to be heard in Rules on Monday at 5 p.m., and after that it can move to the floor of the House very fast.

I spent the weekend trying to get in touch with the teens, many of whom were out of town and some of whom were up on the slopes taking advantage of 225 inches of snow and clear blue skies. Managed to talk to most of them by Sunday night, and to round up one kid who was able to come with me at noon. Spent the morning writing an opinion piece to hand out and getting ready for the class I am teaching this week for kids who have had a minor consuming conviction, and at noon the young man came to my office and we walked across the street and delivered the fact sheets. This student hadn't done any work with politicians before, so it was both exciting and frightening for him.

We went to the offices of all 40 of the Representatives. The first five, I talked and he listened. And then I began letting him start and just adding what he forgot or didn't know. Finally, I sat on a bench in the hall for the last two while he handled it himself. It was wonderful to watch him gain confidence as we went from office to office. This was a very minor, verybeginning lobbying effort. Deliver a fact sheet to a staff member and answer any questions about it. He was surprised to discover that most of the legislators hadn't heard of the bill yet, and to have their staffs tell us that the information we were giving was the only lobbying that had been done on it. And they were impressed by a 14 year old boy being serious about legislation.

All in all, a day to be pleased with and a boy to be proud of.

In Defense of Youth

There is an article on Alternet.org about a survey of narcissism among today's youth.

A little smug self-absorption might be a time-honored trait of at least some subsets of the under-30 crowd.

But over the past few decades the prevailing disposition among college students -- today labeled Generation Y or Millennials -- has slid into full-blown narcissism, according to a study released this week.
***a series of "narcissistic personality inventory" questions, each with two possible answers,

Think about that. Two possible answers. When was the last time you took one of these inventories that offered two possible answers? When you did, how often was your true answer not one of the choices? I have been taking these things, both scientific and silly, since the 50s. Rit Dye used to have one in girls' magazines where you answered questions about your personality and they told you what color to dye the bedspread and curtains in your bedroom. My answers were, as in so many of these forced choice tests I've taken since, not listed at all. So, how accurate is the information revealed by this test on narcissism? Having taken courses at UC Berkeley in constructing psychological surveys, I wonder, what are they really measuring? Is it narcissism at all?

I feel competent to speak on this because I am almost 65, and have worked with kids most of my life. I am an Alaska court certified expert on child development and parenting issues, and worked for over ten years with parents in danger of having their parental rights terminated. I have taught parenting classes (and, no, I don't believe in the groundless self-esteem that the authors of this study are talking about) and coached individual parents to improve their ability to discipline and guide their children.

I am currently working with high school students who are interested in preventing underage drinking. I spend at least half an hour with them every week, in addition to several hours at a time doing community service projects. What I know about today's young people does not come from a group of questions to which they can answer only A or B, but from observation, conversation, evaluation, and shared effort. From lots of time actually spent with lots of kids.

My experience and observation is that this is a wonderful generation. They are thoughtful, kind, empathetic, and funny. I go to their classroom at noon for group meetings and, seeing me with my cane, they pull out the one chair in the room that is easy for me to get out of and take my cane and jacket -- and return them to me at the end of the meeting. They distribute handouts for me, come early to projects to help me bring in materials and set up and stay late to assist with clean up. The Alternet.org article mentions that kids of this generation do a lot of community service work, but the authors of the study discount this with the fact that they are required to for school. Yes, they are. The kids I work with are students in health class and required to do 12 hours, and meeting time counts. Most kids do up to 26 hours, and many have been known to stay with the program not only a second semester, but even all four years that they are in high school. Receiving credit for it only that one semester.

A recent study showed that the majority of people dying of drug overdoses are aging baby boomers -- not Millenials. Violence is down with this group of teens. Drug, alcohol, and tobacco use is down. Teen pregnancy is down.

Of course this generation has some narcissistic members, every generation does. And, to some degree, all teens are self-centered. The major task of the teen is to give over childhood and develop an adult self. You can't do this without being more self-centered than either children or adults. However, in my rather long career, I have never seen a less narcissistic generation than the current one. I have never seen a generation that was more attached to parents and had their heads on straighter. I have always seen great kids, and I have always seen not-so-great kids. But, in my experience, the balance tips in favor of the current generation. And I'm getting a little ticked off at hearing them disparaged.

In A Nutshell follows.

Hangin' Out at the High School

You know how babies are attracted to other babies? Well, the same thing happens to adults in high schools. Every time I visit, as I am walking in the halls, all of the adults who pass me smile and say hi! We, also, recognize our own kind.

In A Nutshell follows.

Dropping French

My senior year of high school, I took classes at the local community college in the morning and at the high school in the afternoon. It was necessary to get my schedule approved at the end of my junior year.

On the very earliest day that I could get my advisor to sign approval, I took the schedule in. And my advisor looked at it and said, "I see you want to take German at the college and Latin at the high school. I can't sign for you to take two languages. Decide which one you want and come back and I will sign then."

By now you probably know that I never did like people telling me what I could or couldn't do. And I really never liked people telling me what I could learn! I waited until the last minute on Friday, when she wanted to go home for the weekend, and then I went to her office and said, "Mrs. Gottschalk, I decided you're right. Three languages are just too many. I've decided to drop French."

So, Why Should I Take Geometry?

As was mentioned in Susan Stanley's story on Julie's blog, I met Julie's father in geometry class.

The reason I (the mighty junior) was in the same geometry class as Michael (the lowly sophomore) was that I missed a good deal of the first semester of my sophomore year. I had that tonsillectomy where Kate savaged her father's only pair of dress socks to stuff me a rabbit. I missed school for a couple of colds. And then I got impetigo. Without antibiotic ointment, impetigo takes as much as three weeks to clear up and meanwhile it is so highly contagious that the school would not allow me to attend. I no longer remember how much school I missed altogether, but it was concentrated in the first six or seven weeks of the semester. It didn't make a difference in most classes, because teachers sent my books home and I could keep up. But in geometry, it mattered. I had to drop out of the class and take it my junior year.

I would have never been Maya's Granny, because neither she nor Julie would have existed, if I hadn't come down with impetigo. Not only that, I had a friend from my class, Robert, and Michael had a friend from his class, Jane. Because Michael and I were friends, Robert and I met my dear friend Jane. Jane and Robert got married and had David. So, there are three people who wouldn't have been born if I hadn't had impetigo. You just never know what small thing is going to have what big effect.

My first geometry teacher, who's name I no longer remember (perhaps because I wasn't in his class that long) is memorable to me for two events. One of the memorable events that happened in that class was the day we were learning inverses and obverses for theorems. The teacher, who was sitting on the edge of his desk, asked me for the inverse of a right angle, and out of my mouth popped "a left angle". He laughed so hard that he made a five point landing on the floor, from where he announced, "and now we know why the pun is the lowest form of humor." Ah, so. I can make people laugh by saying smart things!

The other had to do with the fact that I moved around a lot as a kid, and two of the places I had lived before high school were El Paso, Texas and Roswell, New Mexico. Both have a touch of Southern dialect. I had picked it up. The first day of class, the teacher passed out problem sheets and told us to figure them. Now, to me, newly returned to California from the Southwest, figure was a synonym for guess. As in "What are you bringing to the church social, Ida Mae?" "I don't know. I figure maybe potato salad." Not believing that a math teacher could want me to guess the answers to arithmetic, I asked what he meant by figure. And he said, "Reckon." Well, reckon is also a synonym for figure in the South. As in, "Although, I reckon I might bring deviled eggs." More confused than ever, I valiantly tried again, "what do you mean by reckon?" and he answered, "You know, calculate." My gawd! Can you just see it coming? To me, calculate was yet another synonym for figure and reckon and guess. I have to admit, I cheated. I couldn't bring myself to guess at those problems and so I did arithmetic on them. I'll be damned! People can use the same words to mean different things!

And now that I think about it, if science is defining calculate, figure, and reckon as perform precise mathematical operations and Southerners are defining them as "take a wild, improbable guess" it is no wonder that when biologists call it the theory of evolution, Southern Baptists hear, "Your guess is as good as mine."

Day Three

So, no phone call since Saturday. I can safely assume that they ran into no problems that Stephanie couldn't handle and they are now at camp, and having fun. I have been e-mail corresponding with the camp director for about six weeks now, and her staff have been so excited to be having my teens come all the way from Alaska that it is heart warming. They went out of their way to meet Stephanie and the girls at the airport this morning and are going out of their way to deliver them back on Friday. They rounded up bedding for them so that they wouldn't have to drag it from Alaska. They rounded up prom dresses for them so they wouldn't have to bring those from home. They e-mailed them regularly to tell them what to bring and what to expect and just to make certain that they were not the only campers there that didn't already know someone. Bless the Michigan MADD chapter. I feel this sense of a job well done.

They start back on the 14th, and unless I hear anything from them, you won't get any further updates from me until then.

Friendship

When I was a sophomore attending Hillsdale High in San Mateo, California, I spent a lot of time in the public library. And this odd thing was happening. In those days, when you checked out a book, the librarian stamped the date it was due on a small page attached to the inside cover of the book. So, by looking at that you could see how often the book was checked out and when that had last happened. And what I noticed was that I was checking out a lot of books that hadn't been checked out in years, and then a lot from the very same shelves, and often by the very same authors, that had very recently been checked out for the first time in a number of years. I mentioned it to the librarian who told me that there was another girl my age who was checking out the same books and noticing the same things. I went back and looked in the books I had previously taken, and sure enough, very often there was another reader within a couple of weeks. One day I was in the stacks and the librarian came up to me and said, "Come with me, your friend is here." And that’s how I met Kate.

Sometime that year my sister, Colleen, got tonsillitis. Actually, Colleen often got tonsillitis but they had never been able to take them out before because she usually got it during polio season. This time she got it when it wasn't polio season and the doctor and my parents decided that it would be a good idea to get all three of us taken care of at the same time. And so it happened that Colleen, who was four, and Forrest, who was nine, and I, who was 14, got rounded up and operated on. And while I was in the hospital after my tonsillectomy, Kate came to visit me. She brought this unbelievably funny black rabbit that she had made out of a pair of her father's socks. One arm was sewn inside out and the cotton was poking out the arm pit on the other side, so it looked like the rabbit had left off shaving her pits in the middle. I laughed and laughed. Then, Kate told me that just as she had been finishing it up, she heard her father asking her mother, "Where are my good black socks?" and that was so supremely funny that I laughed until my throat bled and the hospital wouldn't let Kate come to visit me again because she cheered me too far up! And I had that silly rabbit for about forty years and would have it to this day if it hadn't been lost in a move.

Kate and I used to spend the night with each other as often as we were allowed. Once when she was visiting me, my entire family was asleep and we were sitting up in bed reading. One of us was reading James Thurber's "File & Forget". She (I?) began reading it aloud, but it was so funny, that she (I?) laughed too hard to read and the tears began to run and her (my?) glasses fogged up. So, the book went back and forth between us, each reading as long as she could and then surrendering the book to the other, who had barely recovered from her last attempt. Somewhere in there my mother came in about three times to hush us up because, "you are going to wake up your father!" And the funny thing about that is that, although I didn't realize it until recently when I was telling this story, she really meant that we were keeping her awake. And the way that I know that is that my step-father didn't sleep with his hearing aids in.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

In 1957, in San Mateo, California, my best friend from my first high school, Kate, belonged to a Scout troop that had an unusual custom for greeting each new month. As soon as you got up on the first, you were supposed to jump up and down three times, saying "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit". If you missed the first, you could satisfy the fates by greeting the second with "squirrel, squirrel, squirrel". I no longer remember what the saving phrase was for the third, but your last chance came on the fourth, with "turtle, turtle, turtle". For some reason, although there was no exchange on the first three days, on the fourth there was added a greeting from one Scout to another. And so, on the fourth of each month, Kate and I would be walking down the hall and she would spot another girl from her troop and it would happen.
"Are you a turtle?"
"You bet your sweet ass I am!"
Fast forward to Fairbanks, Alaska, 2000. I was visiting my friend Linda, who I went to junior high with in El Paso, Texas in 1954 (we moved around a lot when I was a kid) and her husband and her mother. Now, the thing is that Linda and Bobby and Fern have this idea that I know everything, and no matter how I try to dissuade them of this, they save lists of things to ask me when I'm coming. That year we had already gone through a good number of pages of obscure stuff, all of which I knew, including recognizing a photo that had been puzzling people there abouts. "Oh," I said casually as I glanced at it, "that's the old Sutro's Baths in San Francisco." (Which, as it happens, I had visited with Kate.) So, we check the web, and sure enough!
One evening we went out to eat at the Turtle Club. We sat down and the place mats had AYAT? YBYSAIA on them.
"What," asked Linda, "do you think that means?"
"Are you a turtle? You bet your sweet ass I am!"
And Linda said, in a most satisfied tone, "I knew she'd know!"